Greedy Goblin

Tuesday, February 11, 2014

Marmites scammed me in January!

Goons and their pets are still trolling with the "Marmites are scamming you" line, hoping that I stop paying Marmite for permadec Goons and notable pets. Instead of opinions, here comes the January killboard analysis of The Marmite Collective. Remember that if a 100M target dies with 50% damage from Marmites, only 50M damage is booked for Marmites, so whoring is excluded: Here is a list of damage done (B ISK) to Goons and their various pets:

After seeing this, I realized that the Goons in the threadnought were right. Marmite is just scamming me. I mean I gave them 3B in January (Lemmings money not included here) and all they did was 124B damage to my enemies?! That's like what? A pitiful titan?! We can't make a scratch to to them and I'm just losing money. I mean if Marmites and Lemmings keep up to this pitiful performance for a year, CFC losses will be pocket change: Asakai and HED-GP combined. I think I just give up now and go back to WoW.

On a more serious note. Many of the Goon pets had no wardecs from Marmite, including RvB, who only jumped as allies on the Lemmings war, so their losses are only due to having kill rights or being suspect. This is a serious problem and my ISK is the cure.

Let's see the losses: 325 ships, 34 pods, 41.1B ISK. That's 95.5% ISK ratio, without whoring.
Notable losses: 3895M, 976M, 880M, 864M, 831M, 684M, 626M, 619M, 616M, 595M, 554M, 531M.
Losses to GSF are 1.9B, giving 92.3% ISK ratio in the war.

Finally, the most hilarious statistics (with 308 members):
- Kills: 34.1B/member/year for Marmites, 0.48B/member/year for Goons, 1.2B/member/year for inner pets.
- Losses: 1.6B/member/year for Marmites, 0.48B/member/year for Goons, 0.8B/member/year for inner pets.
This time the "you just shoot unarmed barges" doesn't work. Marmite attacks war targets who belong to strong PvP alliances. Yet they have 70x more kills than an average Goonwaffe punk.

57 comments:

Lucas Kell said...

Jita or not, all they do is camp stations and gates.
And the reason we say you ar being scammed is because they are doing nothing different to what they always do. You are paying them to do what they do anyway, and your goals remain unachieved. Notice how all you do in every one of your posts is spout KB stats? that's because you have no actual progress to speak of so all you can do is keep banging on about the numbers.

High sec wardecs happen. They always have happened. This is not new. When are you going to get it into your head that you paying the bill for the exact same thing that has been happening for years is not going to make a blind bit of difference?

But by all means continue paying for it. It really doesn't matter how much you want to pay Marmite, we'll continue to do what we've done forever. Just one day you can look back on this and perhaps realise that we weren't trolling you, we were making actual realistic observations.

Gevlon said...

Check that table again. There are 4 alliances that suffered 87% of the damage (GSF, PBLRD, SMA, LI3). Do you think the rest of the CFC alliances are so much better?

No, they were simply not under wardec and their losses are sporadic, usually to having kill rights.

Marmite does NOT use to keep these alliances wardecced, because every single wardec costs 2.2B/month. Keeping all of them decced would cost 30B/month (RvB war is free if you shoot GSF POCOs). Marmite simply doesn't have this money.

When they have some, they wardec some nullsec alliances. When they run out of ISK, they let the wars lapse.

I can make these wars run forever.

Yes, I noticed that POCOs aren't falling. But we'll get to that.

Lucas Kell said...

And if Marmites were the only wardec corp that would matter. There's still nothing happening today that wasn't happening a year ago. Why do you think that now you are paying the bill it suddenly matters how many plebs lose their stuff making stupid decisions in high sec? Honestly I tire of repeating myself and clearly you are adamant you are right, so maybe I should just drop it and in a year when absolutely nothing changes you can tell us all how our doom is nigh.

Marmite won't take the POCOs, since they can't dock or jump when there's trouble, and they don;t want losses on their killboard. I was there when Marmite attacked the undefended goon POCO. when the goons arrived Tora bolted for the station so quick he hadn't even issued to command to run away yet.

Oh and just FYI, of course Marmite has that money. They get plenty of loot and run an alt corp which ganks freighters. The reason they drop the wardec is the same reason all wardec corps drop the wardec. The longer it runs the fewer targets they see, so they drop it and target a new group and cycle round, so no group grows too accustomed to them being at war with them. Your permadec will eventually teach the dumbasses that are getting killed not to go to highsec (like we tell them) and your target pool will shrink.

Gevlon said...

Marmites already told that loot goes to the killer pilots. It makes sense, since the freighter kills are all for a small corp "Freight Club". I'm sure they pay some to the wardec chest, but if Marmite would demand all loot, they could just quit them to keep it.

You are indeed right, that deccing target A for a week, then B for a week is better than deccing A for 2 weeks, and that's what Marmite did.

You are right that there is diminishing returns because the dumb slowly learn, so in the 5.th month of the war, less Goons will die than in the first.

But deccing BOTH A and B is always better, unless the diminishing returns fall to zero. Which isn't looking to be the case. I can let that happen.

Anyway, we'll see the diminishing returns in the monthly reports.


Finally. I'd have to be a serious mental patient to believe that I have a chance to defeat CFC. They are 20-40K people (depending on alt count) and I'm just one. How could I win? However I'm not the only enemy of CFC, and as long as my actions cause hundreds of billions damage to CFC, I can be sure that I pull more weight in the war than most.

Lucas Kell said...

"Marmites already told that loot goes to the killer pilots. It makes sense, since the freighter kills are all for a small corp "Freight Club". I'm sure they pay some to the wardec chest, but if Marmite would demand all loot, they could just quit them to keep it."
Do you honestly believe the Marmite line members get everything and the alliance warchest isn't booming? Don't forget they take merc contracts as well. They have and can make more than enough to permadec whoever they choose. I know you think you are surprisingly rich compared to most, and when you say "500m per week!" to a noob they gasp and collapse to the floor, but to many established players that is pennies. I'd be truly shocked if an alliance like Marmite didn't have at least enough for a couple of years of wardecs and enough regular income to sustain them indefinitely.

"But deccing BOTH A and B is always better, unless the diminishing returns fall to zero. Which isn't looking to be the case. I can let that happen."
Well it's not is it. If you dec A for 1 week, then B the next, and back and forth and neither drop below 90% (arbitrary number selected for ease), then that's better than wardeccing both and letting them both get to 30%.

"Finally. I'd have to be a serious mental patient to believe that I have a chance to defeat CFC. They are 20-40K people (depending on alt count) and I'm just one. How could I win? However I'm not the only enemy of CFC, and as long as my actions cause hundreds of billions damage to CFC, I can be sure that I pull more weight in the war than most."
I think you overestimate the impact this has. I mean for starters you can't get over this idea that you are causing damage to the CFC. It really not the case. I'm not going to go back into explaining why it's personal income since that's clearly futile, but nothing you are doing in high sec is even remotely affecting null sec operations, in fact, the whole time this was has been going on, we've been stomping another region.

I also like how you state: "my actions cause hundreds of billions damage". So is that you taking the credit for the lemmings? You don't even have to show up to their fleets and talk about how high you are and share pictures of animals with peculiar captions, you can just sit back and take all the credit?

Gevlon said...

We can argue about Marmites all day, though I prefer to let this run for a few months and get data.

But Lemmings exists for one and only reason: because I pay Marmite for its existence. Lemmings were found on that threadnought where I found Marmite members. Lemmings would cease to exist if I'd stop paying.

So yes, I can take ALL the credit.

What about the pilots who do the shooting? Without Lemmings they'd shoot random targets. They probably have similar magnitude of kills, probably in lowsec. But these kills would be totally random.

I am solely responsible for turning these players against CFC and focusing their damage on CFC.

Anonymous said...

o7
I have a university degree (law). I have followed the lemmings discussion since it started (and I have read the blog since the old days when it was mostly about trading; I did not come here for the lemmings thingy).
At the moment, I find Gevlon's reasoning more rationally founded than Lucas'. Clearly both are biased, but Gevlon uses hard facts which he puts up for cross-checking, if one would care to do it. His arguments are also mostly logical (in the way of an argument being valid [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logic]). Lucas' reasoning mostly relies on 'authority and experience' without backing by statistical or other evidence. It is 'emotional reasoning' - persuasive, but highly prone to fallacy.
From a scientific standpoint, Gevlon is more likely to be 'right'.

Anonymous said...

Did you know almost 90% of all crime in the world happens within 24hours of the criminals having consumed water?

Data is not everything, context is important, dumping tables, charts and percentages only bears meaning when the proper context and causality is establishes, that is what I beleive Lucas is trying to do while I only see Gevlon proclaim early victory based on a any > 0% number.

Now I find this war entertaining. Gevlon is creating content in EvE. Make no mistake, that is a good thing. However I find his analisys of "dunking" GSF wildly exagerated. The lemmings are killing the same dumb dudes every alliance has running around clueless in highsec think "oh, im in a powerfull nullsec alliance, noone will mess with me".

Lemmings WILL get a ton of kills, just like any highsec wardeccer does...no more, no less. They focus on GSF so data will be skewed that way. Gather data on that!

Lucas Kell said...

"At the moment, I find Gevlon's reasoning more rationally founded than Lucas'. Clearly both are biased, but Gevlon uses hard facts which he puts up for cross-checking, if one would care to do it"
Oh, OK Mr degree, I guess you must be right. It doesn't matter that some of us have first hand knowledge with what he is talking about. It also doesn't matter that you can cross check the fact that high sec wars have been going on since before he started playing, or that the CFC is continuing to grow throughout this campaign. The only facts Gevlon present are some out of context numbers which in themselves will be incomplete. He then assumes conclusions that are completely separate from the evidence provided.

Bear in mind my evidence is also clear to see. The CFC is still here, still growing, and currently stomping yet another region. Feel free to check (dotlan is your friend). High sec wardec corporations (including Marmite) have existed for years and got trillions in kills, again, feel free to check.

Now some parts are harder to evidence as information is privileged, such as Gevlons claim that goons don't turn up for ops. Now I know that's not true, since I have first hand knowledge of the ops, and also get to see participation statistics. If you want to check that, feel free to turn up to some CFC battles and check the local list. Note though that his method of determining their participation relied heavily on killmails (which many ops do not generate, especially for logistics) and dotlan's ratting statistics (which dotlan themselves have stated are inaccurate, and are impossible to break down to an alliance level).

The realism of it is that Gevlon doesn't have the access to the information or the ability to properly extrapolate results from a given dataset. The fact that you claim to have a degree in law, yet fail to see the vast flaws in his analysis leads me to believe that you either just don't like me or didn't do very well with your degree (more likely the former, since you post anonymously so your words lack conviction). I would imagine that someone with a degree in law would understand that conclusions must be properly evidenced, not just assumed from obscure data.

Anonymous said...

The last I heard on this project was that the victory condition revolved around POCOs.

Using KB stats and economic damage (Gevlon's side of the argument) and member impact/CFC impact (Lucas Kell's side of the argument) may give a subjective barometer of how both sides feel the project is going but those particular arguments are ultimately irrelevant.

Really, if we are using POCOs as the victory condition, if none have changed at this point, this project is not working for its intended goal.

It would be helpful to give a time factor to this- example: The victory condition is to take all Goon POCOs within 1 year from today, etc.

If the goals have changed (permawar/ economic damage to goons), then there can be better discussion/debate on that front.

Gevlon said...

The goal was always hurting Goons. I believed that it's best done via taking POCOs. The amount of damage Goons and pets are taking here in ship losses surprised me and I currently exploring this aspect.

POCOs aren't forgotten.

Lucas Kell said...

"The amount of damage Goons and pets are taking here in ship losses surprised me"
You mean zero right? See this is where you miss the mark no matter how much we explain it to you. You want to hurt Goons, the collective. But all you are actually doing is hurting dumb members, which pretty much has the opposite effect on the collective. No matter how much you want to believe this isn't true, it remains to be the case. If it wasn't you can be damn sure high sec wars would have been an issue a LONG time ago.

Unknown said...

@Lucas
You are right to question Mr. Degree’s premise concerning the context and accuracy of Gelvon’s data. However your point is moot as he already took that into account. The conclusion he arrive at was “more LIKELY to be correct” and not “IS correct.” Again, he said this purely in the context of analyzing the logical arguments being presented. It wasn’t stated “Gelvon uses logicz therefore everything he says is truff!” All that was stated was Gelvon has fewer fallacies in his argument(s) than you do in your own. When you use the established methods of analyzing an argument you would see that Mr. Degree is correct.

Gelvon has presented his argument and your counter argument is his data is inaccurate, his method of analysis is flawed, he takes things out of context and he reaches his conclusions too early. Well your logical progression is more fraught with logical fallacies and inconsistencies than Gelvon’s and provides no factual evidence. Your asserted opinion based off your experience and claimed inside knowledge is noted, but until quantifiable and verified is irrelevant. It doesn’t matter if Gelvon’s argument can be disproven or not. The point is your own counterargument does not disprove it.

Furthermore, so far all Gelvon has done is collecting the first sample for analysis. I’ve yet to see him arrive at a conclusion. He himself has stated multiple times he’s going to have to wait a few more months to determine long term success. So far the data appears to be favorable to his cause, but one data sample does not a trend make. We will all have to wait to see the long term outcome and ramifications.

Finally, your arguments about the amount of POCOs that have been destroyed and that Marmites could have create their own permadec war with the Goons in irrelevant. Gelvon’s goal was not to destroy the entirety of Goon POCOs in highsec within a month. His goal has been to create an alliance capable of doing so to draw Goons into highsec and to do as much damage to them as possible. It would seem progress has been made in this area. Also at the moment the forces supporting the anti-Goon cause are at quite a strategic imposition as their opposition is quite formidable. Long term goals I’m sure are far from being realized, but that’s largely irrelevant for the sake of this discussion. As for the Marmites, it doesn’t matter if they could have premadeced the Goons before. They were not permadeced before and now they are. Seems pretty straight forward to me.

Gevlon said...

@Lucas: you seems to claim that the well-being of the individual CFC member is irrelevant for the well-being of the collective. It's like claiming that the destruction of the World Trade Center did not affect the USA, since the buildings were private property and the vast majority of the victims there were not governmental workers.

This is not true for two reasons:
- the average person judges the collective according to its ability to contribute to his own well-being (see also: having fun with friends). The "make them stop logging" in is a well-known Goon doctrine. This is exactly what I'm doing here. The individual is not only lost something he meant to keep, but he is also ridiculed and told off by the group, despite his loss came because of his group membership.
- the individual isn't a drone of the collective. He BOTH pursue individual goals and serves the goals of the group. Every time when he finishes an activity, he has to make a choice if his next activity will be for a group or individual goal. Oversimplified: to fleet up or to rat. He will choose the one feels more pressing. By inflicting him individual losses, his individual needs increase, along with the likelihood that he will choose ratting over a fleet.

Anonymous said...

"- the individual isn't a drone of the collective. He BOTH pursue individual goals and serves the goals of the group. Every time when he finishes an activity, he has to make a choice if his next activity will be for a group or individual goal. Oversimplified: to fleet up or to rat. He will choose the one feels more pressing. By inflicting him individual losses, his individual needs increase, along with the likelihood that he will choose ratting over a fleet."

The cfc members you gank in high-sec are already putting their individual goals over the goals of teh collective - otherwise they wouldn't be in high-sec.

By making high-sec more dangerous you are pushing them back into the collective where they belong.

Lucas Kell said...

@Guerdon Malpheron
"However your point is moot as he already took that into account. The conclusion he arrive at was “more LIKELY to be correct” and not “IS correct.”"
How is he "more likely" to be correct. The assumption being made is that he uses figures and I don't thus his argument is logical and mine is not. That in itself is a fallacy. He's using figures to produce a flawed conclusion. No matter how logical it may be, it can be no more correct than the flawed assumptions. Please by all means let me know what fallacies I have in my arguments other than not supplying 2 pages of irrelevant data. If Gevlon is correct, then the CFC is broke and everyone that should be doing ops is ratting and dying in high sec. So how are we currently stomping a region right after losing multiple trillions of isk?

"Gelvon has presented his argument and your counter argument is his data is inaccurate, his method of analysis is flawed, he takes things out of context and he reaches his conclusions too early. Well your logical progression is more fraught with logical fallacies and inconsistencies than Gelvon’s and provides no factual evidence."
What evidence do you want?
1. Zkillboard show KILLS. Participation includes LOGISTICS. That alone tell you kills != Participation.
2. Dotlan statistics - They themselves state why it's incomplete, since the EVE API only displays an hour of data, so gap times where either dotlans server or the API sever are down, plus fractional difference in cache times with each pull make their data incomplete.
3. Further to dotlans data being incomplete, ratting in many a GSF region is open to more than just GSF, thus looking at "number of NPCs killed in a region owned by GSF" and stating that as GSFs rat count is clearly an assumption.
4. Further to 3, GSF ratting a lot doesn't automatically equal "no OP participation". it's possible to do both, hell, it's possible to do both at the same time (often during tidi fights).
5. Kills in highsec are individual kills, not covered by SRP, as such don't affect the alliances. This is public knowledge. The assumption chucked on here is that when someone loses a ship in high sec, they quit turning up to ops until they grin the isk back. A completely unfounded assumption NOT based on the data.

All of this and more I've stated time and time again. If you want I'll chuck it in an excel spreadsheet along with a bunch of random percentages and a random graph (maybe a sin curve or something pretty) and perhaps that will satisfy you?

"Furthermore, so far all Gelvon has done is collecting the first sample for analysis. I’ve yet to see him arrive at a conclusion."
You may have misread his posts. Like a lot.

Lucas Kell said...

"Finally, your arguments about the amount of POCOs that have been destroyed and that Marmites could have create their own permadec war with the Goons in irrelevant. Gelvon’s goal was not to destroy the entirety of Goon POCOs in highsec within a month. His goal has been to create an alliance capable of doing so to draw Goons into highsec and to do as much damage to them as possible. It would seem progress has been made in this area."
All I've seen is progress on making a Marmite training corp. All lemmings do is camp stations and gates, and go into low sec for the occasional T1 frig stomp. The one time goons did form (and I loosely use the term) fleet, all of the online lemmings ran to a completely different region. From what I can see (and I get to see a lot) they aren't even trying to train people into actual PvP. Even their FC training seems to revolve around "how to find a good gate".

"As for the Marmites, it doesn’t matter if they could have premadeced the Goons before. They were not permadeced before and now they are. Seems pretty straight forward to me."
Most null alliances are decced by someone or another at all times. As stated above, most wardec corps find it less beneficial to permadec an alliance, as the alliance gets used to their attack patterns and their effectiveness drops. Feel free to go ask any of the other wardec corps about it. Again Gevlon makes the assumption though that Marmite aren;t because they can't afford it. Do you honestly believe that a Merc corp like Marmite can't afford a wardec?

@Gevlon
"you seems to claim that the well-being of the individual CFC member is irrelevant for the well-being of the collective. It's like claiming that the destruction of the World Trade Center did not affect the USA, since the buildings were private property and the vast majority of the victims there were not governmental workers."
Well for starters it's not like that at all. 9/11 cost the US hundreds of billions of dollars at a minimum. And that was on their own home turf. That would be like attacking VFK. what it's more equivalent to is a US citizen being killed by Somali pirates after being told explicitly not to go to Somalia. That, while being sad, does not affect the US at all.

"The individual is not only lost something he meant to keep, but he is also ridiculed and told off by the group, despite his loss came because of his group membership."
Yeah, but he lost it though his own stupidity. If that means he wants to leave the group, he is welcome to. Him leaving doesn't hurt the group though, it in fact makes it stronger by getting rid of one idiot. The majority of the time though, the individual will either not care and carry on as normal, or take a ribbing and get back to normal.

"he has to make a choice if his next activity will be for a group or individual goal. Oversimplified: to fleet up or to rat. He will choose the one feels more pressing."
And if he gets caught choosing to rat during a CTA, he gets purged, like has been done in the past. It's pretty simple stuff.

Lucas Kell said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Anonymous said...

@ Lucas Kell

Just curious here- Does CFC reimburse its members for all ship losses, i.e those linked in this post or are they counted as "dumb losses" on members who shouldn't be in Hisec and thus get no re-imbursement?

Lucas Kell said...

@Anon
"Just curious here- Does CFC reimburse its members for all ship losses, i.e those linked in this post or are they counted as "dumb losses" on members who shouldn't be in Hisec and thus get no re-imbursement?"
SRP only covers losses in wartime or defensive battles. That across most SRP systems for most alliances. People losing ships ratting, mining or on self-led PvP (that isn't being done specifically for the alliance) aren't covered. High sec losses are the same, so are only covered if there is a high sec CTA (which there are pretty much none, just interdictions and Burn Jita, etc.).

I don't imagine anything in any of these posts has been SRPed.

Phelps said...

If I understand kell correctly, he is saying that GG IS successful, but only against dumb members. If that is the stand, then GG is going to win, hands down.

Only dumb members? In any large organization, dumb members ARE the organization. No large group can survive as a large group without the dummies. Since CFC, as I understand it, derives it's strength from size, when the size goes, it goes. If higher dumb members go, CFC is done.

Piffle said...

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought the goal of this whole thing was to kill Goons? Aren't the POCOs just a means to an end there? The POCOs themselves aren't of that much importance, it's not like they're pulling in magnitudes of income with them. The are only focused on because attacking a POCO draws out the Goons.

Killing Goons is the focus of this endeavor.

Phelps said...

Also, from a strategic standpoint, the lemmings are more likely to win. They are fighting a classic guerrilla war. The goons (who started as a guerrilla force) are trying to run the large logistics train set piece war.

If the guerrillas stay guerrillas, and the large army doesn't start some sort of Anti-insurgent strategy, they will never win. They might never lose, but then, like GG promised, it is eternal war.

OF COURSE the lemmings run when the goons fleet up. THAT IS WHAT GUERILLAS DO. You don't fight conventional battles. You hit and run.

In fact, by doing that, they furthered the goal. The goons fleeted up, and then.... Sat around pulling their puds and accomplishing nothing. How many times will people join that fleet before everyone says, "why should I join a fleet when they will just run off?"

The goons are trolls. They made the mistake of trying to go straight, and now they are being trolled to death. It's delicious.

Phelps said...

Piffle is right. Look at the conception post:

http://greedygoblin.blogspot.com/2014/01/grr-goonswarm.html

"But then they should attack Goon POCOs, it guarantees small scale fights! Why don't they do it? Because the war has costs. 0.5B/week, about 2.2B/month. That's trivial sum to me, but not to someone who enjoys frigate PvP. So I got a much better idea than playing hide-and-seek myself. I find a highsec PvP corp that wishes to spearhead the slaughter of bees. I ask them to start an alliance. It just costs 1B at the start and 2M/month/corporation. They should accept any corp to join which has killboard activity in highsec and not obvious Goon friend. There must be no other filter, or code of conduct or whatever. Everyone who can and want to shoot Goons should be welcomed. The alliance of course will be in perma-war with Goonswarm Federation. All costs on me."

Not a THING in it about actually TAKING POCOs, because the whole post was about goons showing up when there was never any DANGER of GG taking the POCO (because he would never get through the shield.)

Lucas Kell said...

@Phelps
"Only dumb members? In any large organization, dumb members ARE the organization. No large group can survive as a large group without the dummies. Since CFC, as I understand it, derives it's strength from size, when the size goes, it goes. If higher dumb members go, CFC is done."
Couple of issues.
1. There's no evidence to suggest that any numbers are being lost from this, in fact numbers are generally going up.
2. CFC no longer rely as heavily on size. Most of our more recent victories have been strategic rather than a simple numbers game.
3. Even if 1 and 2 were not the case, even if membership halved we'd still be big enough to field a system worth, and the people that would be leaving wouldn't be the people that matter.

@Piffle
"Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought the goal of this whole thing was to kill Goons? Aren't the POCOs just a means to an end there?"
Well originally the goal was to take the POCOs away and kick the goons out of high sec. That's been restated a couple of time too. But as usual, the goalposts move. General Lemming seems to want to take a fleet into VFK, while Gevlon wants to get killboard numbers as high as possible.
And if the goal is just to "kill goons, any goons" then op success. But if the goal is to actually kill "the goons" as in the actual group, that's not going to happen from the safety of the Amarr docking ring.

@Phelps
"Also, from a strategic standpoint, the lemmings are more likely to win. They are fighting a classic guerrilla war."
Even guerrilla fighters need an achievable long term goal. EVE doesn't really support the hit and run tactics due to timers (and if those went, hoooo boy would the CFC have some fun, all you can eat hisec POS buffet) so they need to have an achievable goal and a realistic way to get there. Sure, they could keep paying the war for pretty much eternity, and I'm sure CCP would thank them for the isk sink, but that's the only effect it would have.

"In fact, by doing that, they furthered the goal. The goons fleeted up, and then.... Sat around pulling their puds and accomplishing nothing."
A handful of alts, yes. Bet they were just kicking themselves while dual boxing the other ops happening that night. Also, have you met the goons? Did you witness fountain? If the membership were prone to running off after sitting around for a while doing nothing, they'd have quit long ago. That's the benefit of recruiting from a pool of forum posters. They are perfectly happy sitting in a fleet posting pictures of cats and trolling on forums for considerable amounts of time. I'd be very surprised if lemmings were as happy to do the same.

"The goons are trolls. They made the mistake of trying to go straight, and now they are being trolled to death. It's delicious."
Are you even playing the right game? It's EVE Online. You can download it here: http://www.eveonline.com/start

Provi Miner said...

Well I have to agree, the marimite would not war dec all three corps endlessly, they just don't that (experience here as lucas says fuck the numbers its about experience). The wars have to make sense and dec'ing anyone makes almost no sense after about 3-4 weeks. Unless of course one of the war dec'd parties brings a dancing partner in for free thereby opening up an entire nother group from which to cull from. As for Luca's experience lets be clear here his experince is un verifide so we can match his experience as equal with anyone who posts here. I have been war dec'd by marimite several times therefore I have the nessarry experience to comment on this thread. lol

Anonymous said...

Are Goons required to buy their first capitals and skillbooks for flying them or are they given by the alliance? Do personal losses mean that GSF has less capital pilots in future?

Phelps said...

@Lucas Kell -- you are completely and totally wrong. I don't play Eve, so I don't know about those specific facts, but you are absolutely and totally wrong about guerilla warfare, from the top to the bottom.

First, hit and run tactics are exactly what you are complaining about. They attack (the hit) and then dock as soon as the fleet shows up (the run.)

The Lemmings don't NEED a goal beyond "cost them money". They don't need to take anything. They feed on tears. As long as they can gank and then run away laughing when the fleet shows up, they are sustainable. The fleet will form up for a goal. If that goal is "protect the dummies from gankers who we never even get a shot at" I just don't see that as a goal worthy of even wasting time tabbed out on. Meanwhile, dummies keep leaving -- and telling all their dummy friends that they are leaving. The preference cascade will eventually come. The lemmings are a true guerilla force -- they aren't seeking to MAKE anything, just destroy what others have. That's the easiest thing in the world to do.

Anonymous said...

The Lemmings/Marmites lose more money per person than Goons/pets. Doesn't this mean that they will run out of money first, unless they're much richer?

Lucas Kell said...

@Phelps
"you are completely and totally wrong. I don't play Eve, so I don't know about those specific facts"
Well that's clearly the start of the problem...

"but you are absolutely and totally wrong about guerilla warfare, from the top to the bottom."
So you are saying that people that engage in guerilla warfare have no strategic goal? They don't do it for fun, the smaller attacks are not without a core goal in mind.

"First, hit and run tactics are exactly what you are complaining about. They attack (the hit) and then dock as soon as the fleet shows up (the run.)"
Right, except in guerilla war, the hit does damage to the larger force. All they are doing is killing the odd dumbass that doesn't know how to stay out of high sec. It has absolutely no effect on the group. If they wanted to make an impact with guerilla warfare they would attack in null, picking off targets that actually matter. The problem is they can't actually PvP, so if the target isn't blindly jumping half AFK into a 10:1 gatecamp, they can't kill it.

"The Lemmings don't NEED a goal beyond "cost them money". They don't need to take anything. They feed on tears. As long as they can gank and then run away laughing when the fleet shows up, they are sustainable. The fleet will form up for a goal. If that goal is "protect the dummies from gankers who we never even get a shot at" I just don't see that as a goal worthy of even wasting time tabbed out on. Meanwhile, dummies keep leaving -- and telling all their dummy friends that they are leaving. The preference cascade will eventually come. The lemmings are a true guerilla force -- they aren't seeking to MAKE anything, just destroy what others have. That's the easiest thing in the world to do."
But they don't cost money, they cost the individual, which does not accomplish what they set out to do. At no point are we suddenly going to form up a fleet for someone that shouldn't be in high sec anyway. So they only way they can cause up to fleet up, is to bash POCOs, which requires them to actually fight, since if they can't fight the timer, there's no point attacking it as it costs nothing to repair.

Honestly, if you haven't played the game, you just won't get it, but trust me, no coalition is going to failscade because of a high sec wardec. If that were to happen, it would have happened by now, considering far more capable wardec groups have attacked far weaker coalitions with zero outcome. It's more likely that lemmings will failscade when they realise that they are making no impact. In essence all lemmings really is is an alt corp for Marmite where you don't get kicked when you lose ships to keep efficiency up.

Anonymous said...

This seems like a good strategy Gevlon is taking for the project.

1) Goons own POCOs
2) Declare "free" wardec against goons and create fights by attacking the POCOs
3) If "dumb" goons show up and engage in spontaneous/self-led PVP, the advantage in general lies with Marmites/Lemmings (as suggested by the KB stats)
4) If goons (the alliance) show up more formally, use hit and run/guerilla tactics until goons are forced to run.
5) If goons don't show up, its a loss of a POCO. Negligible economic impact to goons? Perhaps more reputational impact?

Due to highsec mechanics, this can go on as long as there is interest/participation.

I'm kind of with Gevlon on this, I don't see how they can lose (assuming continued interest).

On a slightly sideways tangent, this somewhat illuminates the problems that any one group might run into if trying to take both null sov AND control highsec.

Lastly, regardless of what happens, this is good content generation for EVE.

Satori Okanata said...

I do think that Lucas seems very and I mean VERY needy to prove his point truth, unfortunately, his experience and knowledge of classified information can not be verified and studied by the rest of us, non holders of that kind of intel. That makes Lucas comments as valid of that of any of us.

The things that can be verified besides what gevlon says, for me are:

Even tho dotlan information is not complete, I'm pretty sure that because of the nature and times when data can be lost, dotlan most have around 80-90% of the data, which is more than enough to make a statistical sample.

If you ratt in goon space you're a goon or allowed by goons so I do consider that data relevant.

Goons dying in highsec - Stupid goons or not, they are goons and they are biting the bitter one. Being the objective of the project to annoy goons, dead goons are annoyed goons, that's independent of their IQ.

About marmite being able to permadec or not on their own it's irrelevant as they they didn't do it before and they do now.

The project growth can't be denied, lemmings are over 300 now.

A true fact about that is that not every highsec dweler can spend 2.2 billions on declaring war to goon alliance, so gevlon by doing it has facilitated access to tons of free fights to pilots that couldn't afford them on their own.

""The amount of damage Goons and pets are taking here in ship losses surprised me"
You mean zero right?" It can't be zero, there aren't any NPC giving free mounts in eve. Someone paid for the gear, it belonged to a goon and it's now lost.

Unknown said...

@Lucas

I apologize, perhaps I should have clarified. I was referring solely to the topics mention in this post. I was trying to keep it germane and concise to the current subject. So I would agree with you on your second point in your reply. Gelvon doesn’t not have the means to prove the “Goon are the biggest carebears in EVE” statement as he does have inaccurate/incomplete data. At best he’s able to establish a loose correlation. I won’t contend that, but to clarify I wasn’t talking about that.

“How is he "more likely" to be correct.”
Since I’m not him I won’t presume to speak on his behalf, but I was operating off of the assumption that Mr. Degree was also referring to the topic of this post, not a previous one. In the context of this post (not previous ones) I would agree. Both you and Gelvon are biased, but his argument follows logical processes more closely. I won’t say the same for some previous ones that do include conjecture.

“All of this and more I've stated time and time again. If you want I'll chuck it in an excel spreadsheet along with a bunch of random percentages and a random graph (maybe a sin curve or something pretty) and perhaps that will satisfy you?”
This would neither prove your point nor disprove Gelvon’s, but you’re welcome to do as you please. We could even differentiate by parts an exponential function to evaluate X as it approaches infinite. That wouldn’t be very germane however. If you mean to say the data used in this post is inaccurate/skewed/misinterpreted then please say so. If you’re saying that about data in some previous post, that’s not was I’m referring to and I wouldn’t disagree with you either.

“You may have misread his posts. Like a lot.”
That’s odd, I’ve always scored very high on reading comprehension. That doesn’t sound like me at all.
Gelvon 11 February, 2014 09:09: “Anyway, we'll see the diminishing returns in the monthly reports.”
Gelvon 11 February, 2014 09:40: “We can argue about Marmites all day, though I prefer to let this run for a few months and get data.”
Oh good it wasn’t me who misread.

Unknown said...

“All I've seen is progress on making a Marmite training corp.”
I think it’s been stated somewhere, either in Gelvon’s blog or on the original EVE forum thread, that if Lemmings get recruited into Marmites that’s okay as long as the focus for both continues to be shooting Goons and allies. So you’re going to have to explain the relevance of that for me to understand your point. As for the guerrilla warfare style tactics, I can’t speak to their overall effectiveness. However it doesn’t seem to be a good idea to engage an enemy with superior forces in open combat if it can be avoided. Surely this is something you engage in frequently. If I understand correctly it’s common in nullsec wars to not engage with capital ships unless victory is almost entirely guaranteed, least risking valuable assets. Obviously this is not always the case, but for the most part is the status quo. This new coalition forms against Goons and allies is in the very beginnings of infancy. On the other side of things the Goons and allies have been around for year, are well organized and outnumber the Lemming/Marmite with a small fraction of their forces. It would be beyond stupidity to engage in open combat. Surely you’re not going to start talking about honorable combat in EVE. It would be nice to see in upcoming month that the Lemmings have sufficient forces to content with the Goons in highsec, but currently it seems to beyond their means.

“As stated above, most wardec corps find it less beneficial to permadec an alliance, as the alliance gets used to their attack patterns and their effectiveness drops. Feel free to go ask any of the other wardec corps about it. Again Gevlon makes the assumption though that Marmite aren;t because they can't afford it. Do you honestly believe that a Merc corp like Marmite can't afford a wardec?”
I’m sure it is within Marmite’s means to keep any nullsec alliance permadeced without exterior ISK. Also I’d agree with you that this is likely due to the diminishing returns of keeping one deced for too long. However, how would this have furthers Gelvon’s goal of killing Goons in highsec by leaving them be. They might have fought with the Goons. Maybe they would have fought with N3 or PL or who know else. If it ends up being that the diminishing returns get too low because Goons are no longer flying in high sec under the Goon banner then Gelvon would have been at least partially successful in getting them out of highsec and could potentially knock moral down a notch highsec is permanently a not friendly place to be. It might also do nothing. Hard to say at this point. What we can say however is that the Marmite are more focused on killing Goons than they have been in the past and are killing more Goons, which is exactly what Gelvon wanted.

Lucas Kell said...

"I do think that Lucas seems very and I mean VERY needy to prove his point truth, unfortunately, his experience and knowledge of classified information can not be verified and studied by the rest of us, non holders of that kind of intel. That makes Lucas comments as valid of that of any of us. "
I'm not needy to prove anything, I'm just shocked that so many people are willing to take on board basically no evidence to support conclusions which are plainly not true. It seems to me that a lot of people here want so much for the goon menace to be destroyed, they will believe anything. But in honesty, if you want to believe that killing a few randoms in high sec is going to have some profound effect on the CFC, by all means continue to believe it, since it affects us to the sum of zero.

"If you ratt in goon space you're a goon or allowed by goons so I do consider that data relevant."
You realise though that the point he was trying to prove is "goons rat more than the rest of the CFC", but then if the rest of the CFC rat in goon space, then those numbers will be inflated while other CFC members are deflated. Do you not see why maybe that's an issue? Noone has ever said that the CFC don't rat, in fact we have quite plainly stated the opposite. But the idea that the goons rat and skip CTAs is frankly ludicrous, and easy to see is false. Just turn up at a few ops and check out local.

"Goons dying in highsec - Stupid goons or not, they are goons and they are biting the bitter one."
Except it has no effect on the goons.

"Being the objective of the project to annoy goons, dead goons are annoyed goons, that's independent of their IQ."
Prove this. Show me where the annoyed goons are. Numbers are continuing to go up, and we are stomping yet another region, so where is the evidence of all these annoyed goons? Basically you're making an assumption, because you would be annoyed by being killed the goons must be annoyed. Not the case. And the objective is to remove goons influence from high sec, ie pocos. benefit of ever moving goalposts I guess.

"The project growth can't be denied, lemmings are over 300 now."
Never denied their numbers are increasing, but raw numbers don't equal strength. I haven't seen any fleets close to that size form up, which leads me to wonder how many are active players and how many are just alts. The downside of merging corps for growth is they bring inactives with them.

" It can't be zero, there aren't any NPC giving free mounts in eve. Someone paid for the gear, it belonged to a goon and it's now lost."
Its zero damage to "the goons". The goal is to get rid of the goons, the group, and killing dumb individuals in high sec has absolutely zero cost for the alliance.

billyjimbob said...

It's high sec ganking, Goons don't care about it. If you get ganked in high sec it's on you, there aren't forum threads raging about how MC are ganking JFs - because they'd done it for years. Anyone who moans about it gets laughed at.

The only way to make GSF sit up is to a take a poco and that's never happened.

Until it does taking credit for for high sec ganking is like me taking credit for rain - it's going to happen because it always has.

Lucas Kell said...

@Guerdon Malpheron
"I apologize, perhaps I should have clarified. I was referring solely to the topics mention in this post"
I wasn't, so that's that. It's an ongoing discussion

"Both you and Gelvon are biased, but his argument follows logical processes more closely."
Again, posts beyond this one need to be accounted. If you take this post on its own, which simply states Marmites kills, then lemmings don't even exist. This would simply be a restatement of Marmites KB which means nothing alone.


"That’s odd, I’ve always scored very high on reading comprehension. That doesn’t sound like me at all."
Gevlon 11 February, 2014 08:35 "Marmite does NOT use to keep these alliances wardecced, because every single wardec costs 2.2B/month. Keeping all of them decced would cost 30B/month (RvB war is free if you shoot GSF POCOs). Marmite simply doesn't have this money."
That right there is a conclusion based on flawed analysis. 2.2b is pocket change for most longer term players. A merc corp would be operating with considerably higher funding than that. Th reason they don't wardec continuously is that it will reduce the effectiveness of the wardec over time, not because they cant afford it.

"I think it’s been stated somewhere, either in Gelvon’s blog or on the original EVE forum thread, that if Lemmings get recruited into Marmites that’s okay as long as the focus for both continues to be shooting Goons and allies."
Having seen the inside of the lemmings, I know the focus is not on goons. They are aiming for any camp kills they can get, and roaming when they can't. That includes a multitude of alliances and corps. Their training methods are raining them in how to gatecamp, not in how to PvP, so if they ever do plan on attacking goon pocos properly, they will not know how. To top it off, even their recruitment thread title has changed from "Darwins Lemmings - 24/7/365 War With Goonswarm" to "Darwins Lemmings ( Marmite Collective Alt Alliance ) - 24/7 WARS !".

And no, it's not a good idea to engage the enemy directly, but it's also not going to have any effect on the group if all you are doing is killing a handful of random individuals. Gevlon got more kills than this group when he was killing miners in high sec, and they live in high sec, yet there were no long term changes. How he thinks that killing random null sec dwellers in high sec is going to make a difference, I don't know. Guerrilla warfare though, that would involve them attacking weaker but important targets. They could attack in null, picking off fleet stragglers or scouts for example, or hit pocos and run. Hell, during the fountain war, we had issues with bomber fleets ambushing whole fleets on gates.

" If it ends up being that the diminishing returns get too low because Goons are no longer flying in high sec under the Goon banner"
The goal originally stated was to get the POCOs out, which would not have been achieved. And people wouldn't have to leave high sec, the diminishing returns come from people learning how and where the wardeccing corp forms up and evading them. I know at least one lemming FC knows this to be true too, since I've seem it being stated.

Anonymous said...

Here's one thing I don't understand: why do you include PBLRD in the tally of Goon losses?

(Apart from "hey, other CFC members, you're no better than renters" propaganda purposes, that is)

They are neither a part of the CFC nor have they joined this war as allies. They still have to pay their monthly rent regardless of their highsec losses. And, obviously, Goons aren't going to reimburse them. Their losses cost nothing to their landlords.

Yes, you could argue that they're a source of income for CFC, and therefore should be included in the butcher's bill. However, if we apply that logic in both directions, we'll see that you have lost tens of trillions ISK to Miniluv. After all, they kill highsec haulers and traders, which are a source of income for you!

Please clarify.

Gevlon said...

Because renters want profit. Their income is from using the space, their costs are the rent and losses. If we inflict them enough losses, they stop being renters or switch to a landlord who doesn't come with a permadec.

Anonymous said...

Right, except in guerilla war, the hit does damage to the larger force. All they are doing is killing the odd dumbass that doesn't know how to stay out of high sec. It has absolutely no effect on the group. If they wanted to make an impact with guerilla warfare they would attack in null, picking off targets that actually matter. The problem is they can't actually PvP, so if the target isn't blindly jumping half AFK into a 10:1 gatecamp, they can't kill it.

Lucas Kell You should do some research. Not only do we fight one v one we even goto null sometimes and fight when out numbered. I can not remember the last time I saw a goon or space monkey fighting out numbered. But here is some proof for you but after this you need to do your own research:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9WJi59XdfQE 5 of us VS 15 in null sec. Was an epic day they trolled as we were going to pass by so we decided to play with them. They shut up real fast and after a bit we forced them off the gate. Please watch it 3 or 4 times to ensure it is correct seeing 100% of the money made from people watching it goes to charity.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-UxBsX1BZIY 13 vs 1 in high sec I killed 3 and lived to tell the tale. I know it was only RvB but hey I can link tons like this. Watch this one a few times too. Also if you like the music you can buy it from the link and 50% of the sales goes to charity.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSnaC7r6duo 12 WT's vs our 8 and that is not counting the RvB fleet who was slow springing the trap.

But most pvp alliances have some fights where they have odds with them and some against. But let me guess space monkeys only fight out numbered? If so you guys are doing it wrong cause you are not winning any wars.

Unknown said...

Lucas Kell What places do you camp to get kills? Do you camp your safe spots or belts? Anyone who gets kills gets them mostly on said spots or towers and yet we have kills on towers too. Hmm We have belt kills. We have safe spot kills. So we have kills in all the same places at you.

But seeing you want to talk about kills http://eve-kill.net/?a=pilot_detail&view=kills&plt_id=54077&m=1&y=2014 55kills you had in Jan. 32 were pods. Over 60% of your kills are pods..... http://eve-kill.net/?a=pilot_detail&view=kills&plt_id=166188&m=1&y=2014 217 kills for me and only 68 were pods. So 31% of my kills were pods.

We normally have 80+ wars at a time easy. We do not have 80 alliance backing us up. When you guys can even come close to that let me know. You may want to rethink your logic. High sec battles are the same as low just on a smaller scale. But let me guess you FC in null and run from solo idiots and only charge at fleets if they out number you at least 3 or 5 to 1 right? Oh wait your killboard shows otherwise.

Thank you for showing everyone how flawed your thinking is. Next time look up facts first.

Lucas Kell said...

@Anon
"Lucas Kell You should do some research. Not only do we fight one v one we even goto null sometimes and fight when out numbered."
Congratulations, I'll fashion you a medal. Doesn't change the fact that the majority of your kills come from gate and station camps, and when people lose ships, they get booted from the alliance. Now while I can;t watch videos at the moment (don't worry, I'll watch them later when I get in so you get paid), the first one link a killboard showing bomb kills in bombers. Truly daring PVP right there. Please tell me the video isn;t a handful of bombing runs and you guys cheering in the background. Anyway, according to Gevlon's comments you guys are poor, so shouldn't your bombers be bombless?

@mike brown
"But seeing you want to talk about kills http://eve-kill.net/?a=pilot_detail&view=kills&plt_id=54077&m=1&y=2014 55kills you had in Jan. 32 were pods. Over 60% of your kills are pods"
I'm an industry pilot, and when I do go on ops, I'm usually logistics on my alts. January I happened to dual box as more interceptors were needed (if you look up the date and location, you'll see that was the B-R fight and that was one of the alternate staging systems). The difference being though that I'm not putting my KB forward as evidence of some sort of achievement am I? I don't sit around fapping over killboard efficiency numbers and acting like it means I'm relevant.

High sec killboard padding is just as easy a null sec killboard padding, this has been evidenced time and again. This very blog proves that in fact. So spouting off about killboard numbers and acting like that means anything is complete and utter nonsense. What matters in this situation is impact, and there has been none.

"Thank you for showing everyone how flawed your thinking is. Next time look up facts first."
lol, yes, my thinking is flawed, that must be it. It couldn't possibly be that killboard numbers aren't the most important metric in eve.

Anonymous said...

Obviously, there are some clear differences in gauging impact.

Lucas Kell using "impact" as anything that alters the behavior of goons (the group, not individual members doing something on their own spare time), and it seems core member participation numbers is what he is zeroing in on (correct me if I'm wrong).

Gevlon is using KB stats and trying to extrapolate economic impact and the consequences to individual goon members (correct me if I'm wrong).

It will be interesting to see what happens in 3-6 months.

The biggest thing is that it is WAY too early to call conclusions on either side.

No disputing Lemmings are growing, on the other side we have Lucas Kell indicating no impact to goon membership (would be helpful to have hard numbers but that may not happen).

Anonymous said...

@Lucas Kell
"So spouting off about killboard numbers and acting like that means anything is complete and utter nonsense. What matters in this situation is impact, and there has been none."

Really, don't you think Gevlon and Lemmings management have their own agenda well beyond killboard? Of course they have. Things take time to be set up. Claiming there have been no impact in such a short time is meaningless and strategical objectives will be addressed when they are due.
In the meantime killboard proves one thing: Lemmings do deliver on the damage side.
But don't be so impatient. :)

Anonymous said...

"If we inflict them enough losses, they stop being renters or switch to a landlord who doesn't come with a permadec."

If that happens, sure. However, at this point, statistics seem to indicate an opposite trend. Since the beginning of your campaign, PBLRD has been growing. More members, more corporations... more money for CFC wallets.

Unknown said...

"It couldn't possibly be that killboard numbers aren't the most important metric in eve."
Okay Lucas I'll bite. What, in your opinion, is the metric that should be used and what is your logic supporting this claim? If KBs and ISK destroyed to show the Lemming Marmite cause is being effective, then what would?

"Again, posts beyond this one need to be accounted"
Only if the premises of one argument rely on the conclusion of another for evidence. Otherwise the logic of each individual argument is independent.

"And no, it's not a good idea to engage the enemy directly, but it's also not going to have any effect on the group if all you are doing is killing a handful of random individuals."
Perhaps I should level up an alt to see this for myself. Having not been in direct contact with the Lemmings/Marmites myself I have no firsthand knowledge on the matter.

“It seems to me that a lot of people here want so much for the goon menace to be destroyed, they will believe anything.”
Honestly I couldn’t care less about the Goons. They have little to no effect on my gameplay. Any qualms I may or may not have with them is purely theoretical, as on a matter of principle I dislike their mentality. Practically speaking it means nothing to me. I’m here because I like playing devil’s advocate and engaging in intellectual discourse. You don’t find discussions like this on the EVE forums; people putting well-formed thoughts into their arguments or being this respectful to each other.

Phelps said...

Right, except in guerilla war, the hit does damage to the larger force. All they are doing is killing the odd dumbass that doesn't know how to stay out of high sec. It has absolutely no effect on the group. If they wanted to make an impact with guerilla warfare they would attack in null, picking off targets that actually matter. The problem is they can't actually PvP, so if the target isn't blindly jumping half AFK into a 10:1 gatecamp, they can't kill it.

Their theory is that the "odd dumbass" is the backbone of the goons. You could make the same argument about any guerrilla attack, because by their nature they are small attacks. The very name means "small war".

The VC never won a major battle in Vietnam and won the war. The Boars never worried about having a set-piece battle with the British. Finnish snipers never won a set-piece battle with the Nazis OR the Russians, but they still managed to create enough of a drag on both armies to influence the war.

And that is the thing that you are missing. A guerrilla doesn't have to destroy their enemy on their own. (In fact, they will graduate from guerrilla to conventional before that happens, like in the American Revolution.) What they do is put an unneeded, extrinsic pressure on the target group, who already has enough problems already. They don't need to beat the goons stand up. They just need to put enough pressure on them to make them fragile.

Once they are fragile, the goons have enough big enemies that one of them will take advantage (maybe even with some prodding from Gevlon.) They lose all their dumbasses? Fine. How many times do the dumbasses make the edge (since quantity has a quality of its own)? One gank isn't going to cause someone to quit. 10 ganks in a week won't do it. But getting ganked by the same people over a long period of time (which, AFAIK, hasn't really been done in Eve) with no response from your leadership tells you that your leadership doesn't give a damn about you, is just using you, and that you would be better off on your own. That is explicitly what Gevlon is arguing.

Babar said...

All the theory about guerrilla warfare is cute, but Eve isn't the real world. If your snipers kill off enemy forces one at a time, or you destroy supplies, that has a tangible effect on the rest of the enemy. If you gank a goon in highsec, it has no effect on the rest of GSF at all. GSF is a null-sec alliance. They have some assets (pocos) in high-sec, and the whole of CFC has a small high-sec presence in Miniluv. That's it. There are no real reasons for a Goon to be in highsec outside of Miniluv. If a goon goes to high-sec, then he knows the risks involved.

For anyone that's ever been in one of the major null-sec alliances, you know that every week there are multiple wardecs against you. You just stop reading the mails, since wardecs do nothing in nullsec, and highsec is dangerous for any character that is in a big alliance anyway. People make it sound like the periods without Marmite wardeccing GSF meant that goons could move freely in highsec. This is of course wrong, since there are _always_ wardecs against big alliances, especially goons. It doesn't matter if it's Marmite or one or more of the dozen other highsec groups. All members of big nullsec alliances know that you're vulnerable in highsec. If you still chose to go, then hopefully you're doing something that is worth the risk. Some people here think that suddenly permadeccing GSF will matter, but GSF has likely been wardecced for so long by various highsec groups that another one doesn't matter much.

So back to the guerrilla warfare thing: Unless you're actually destroying assets, then you're not really doing anything. You can likely argue that all the Marmite kills don't "really" count up to what their KBs say, because many of the people they kill would have been killed by someone else anyway.

As for what metrics show success, Gevlon himself has said that his goal is to remove all Goon pocos from highsec. So that seems to me like a good metric. Padding a KB is meaningless, as it has no effect on anyone, ever. It's pretty obvious that a lot of the people discussing here have never been in a nullsec alliance, and they make silly assumptions. You don't understand what drives goons at all, or how nullsec alliances work, and that makes a lot of the comments here just sound extremely stupid.

Lucas Kell said...

@Anon
"and it seems core member participation numbers is what he is zeroing in on (correct me if I'm wrong)."
Core member participation is one thing, simply because in previous posts and comments, Gevlon has claimed that the killing of high sec goons reduces their participation, which is yet to be seen. If there were any areas where something appears to be different it would show some kind of impact however, but nothing is different at all.

"The biggest thing is that it is WAY too early to call conclusions on either side."
This is true, however what I've tried to point out is that what they are doing is not new. War decs have been put in place by far more capable groups and some have even pushed better strategies than simply shooting things in high sec. Combine that with the lemmings recruitment bar being low enough to include pretty much everyone, and it doesn't lend itself to realistically making any impact.

@Anon
"If that happens, sure. However, at this point, statistics seem to indicate an opposite trend. Since the beginning of your campaign, PBLRD has been growing."
This is true, renters are still on a general upward trend. The thing about the idea of renters leaving though, it's a bit strange to me. Renters rent in null so they can fly in null, not in high. So it seems strange to me that any renter would get killed in high and want to move to a new rental location. I seriously doubt any renters escape all war decs, though I'd need to look at the stats to be sure. I'd have though though that rental alliances would be first on the list for high sec wardeccers, since they know there will be minimal repercussions and easier targets. I certainly know from my experience as a renter that war decs were not an uncommon occurrence.

@
"in your opinion, is the metric that should be used and what is your logic supporting this claim?"
There is no single metric, it depends on goal. The goal is to damage the goons (well originally it was to rid highsec of their property), so killmail stats against individual members of the group that choose to fly around high sec against the advice of their alliance would not seem to be relevant. For their goals I would consider any metric that can show a realistic impact. Loss of pocos, membership/rental reduction, visible financial difficulty, etc. Killboards are notoriously easy to buff, and this very blog shows that in multiple ways, so saying "look at the efficiency of a small group vs that of a large group in an area the large group does not frequent in force" is obviously going to show a result favouring the small group. I'd be shocked if it showed anything different.

"Only if the premises of one argument rely on the conclusion of another for evidence."
You also have to look at the overall aim of what he's trying to say. Stood alone this post is simply a statement of Marmite KB stats, but in context, it's an extension of his recent lemmings post chain. Restricting the discussion to only this post would leave rather little to be discussed, and would certainly be ignoring the context of the post.

"Perhaps I should level up an alt to see this for myself. Having not been in direct contact with the Lemmings/Marmites myself I have no firsthand knowledge on the matter."
I'm not sure what your experience is, but you should be able to understand why killing individual goons in a place they are explicitly told not to go is not going to do a thing. No coalition logistics get moved on in-alliance characters, it's all done through out of alliance alts, so all damage done is done to an individual, and doesn't affect the coalitions ability to perform. If it did, it would have been a problem long ago, since war decs against null groups have pretty much always been a thing.

"You don’t find discussions like this on the EVE forums; people putting well-formed thoughts into their arguments or being this respectful to each other."
Agreed.

Lucas Kell said...

@Phelps
"The VC never won a major battle in Vietnam and won the war. The Boars never worried about having a set-piece battle with the British. Finnish snipers never won a set-piece battle with the Nazis OR the Russians, but they still managed to create enough of a drag on both armies to influence the war."
And in all those situation, they had an overall goal and their attacks were designed to inflict maximum damage on the enemy. They weren't simply attacking any random with no goal in mind. If we were to go to war with Korea, and I just ran up to a random Korean tourist slapped their face then ran away, that's not guerrilla warfare. In the same way, slapping some random goon in high sec who knows they shouldn't be there is not damaging to the goons. In fact, it helps, since it validates the reason they are told not to go to high sec.

"They don't need to beat the goons stand up. They just need to put enough pressure on them to make them fragile"
What pressure is being put on them though?

"One gank isn't going to cause someone to quit. 10 ganks in a week won't do it. But getting ganked by the same people over a long period of time (which, AFAIK, hasn't really been done in Eve) with no response from your leadership tells you that your leadership doesn't give a damn about you, is just using you, and that you would be better off on your own."
And in that case, the group is better off without you. These are not people doing everything right and getting no backup, they are doing it wrong, and failing. Imagine you were testing an employee, and you gave the person a written test to see how smart they were. You hand them a pencil and say "I know its obvious, but don't stab yourself with this pencil". If they then stabbed themselves with the pencil, and it hurt, then they stabbed themselves again, and again, and again each time wincing in pain, you would already know they are not bright enough. The goon leadership don't need to keep telling people not to go to high sec. They should already know, and if being ganked 10 times by not following that simplest of guidelines causes them to quit, what hope would they have had of actually benefiting the group anyway? The group is better off without them.

That said, there's no evidence that even a single person has considered quitting due to it. In fact, there's no real mention of it at all outside of this blog and the associated forum threads.

Phelps said...

If you are so certain, then why are you posting? Wouldn't it be better to encourage Gevlon to waste his money, removing resources he might use to cause "actual" harm?

Oh, that's right, because he IS doing harm, and this the best defense you have, naysaying.

Lucas Kell said...

"If you are so certain, then why are you posting? Wouldn't it be better to encourage Gevlon to waste his money, removing resources he might use to cause "actual" harm?"
How would it change my game experience either way? I'd rather offer up honest critique. It would be rather fun to see a realistic and achievable plan put into play with competent participants. Bad statistical analysis and obvious propaganda I can get from a multitude of sources.

"Oh, that's right, because he IS doing harm, and this the best defense you have, naysaying."
I tell you what, how about you play the game, learn the mechanics and the political structure, then come back with a straight face and tell me how much harm he's doing.

Phelps said...

Nah, the game itself sucks. The biggest impediment to fun in Eve is Eve.

Wusselfussel said...

Come on Phelps, join EVE and kill Lucas in his mining barge while he yells at you that you aren't doing any harm :-)

Gevlon said...

@Phelps: You probably can't enjoy playing EVE for itself, that's true. You think I enjoy updating market orders? Or anyone at Lemmings enjoys farming RvB frigs?

But EVE can provide another level of enjoyment: that you did something meaningful to other, real people. For primitives it's "I made them mad". For intelligent people it is "I proved them something". Reaching 0.5T was satisfying, so was outperforming whole nullsec alliances in kills.

Consider joining EVE, disproving Lucas and the likes would be fun!

Lucas Kell said...

@Wusselfussel
"Come on Phelps, join EVE and kill Lucas in his mining barge while he yells at you that you aren't doing any harm :-)"
:D I very rarely mine these days, only to top up certain resources where required, but best of luck to you.

"For intelligent people it is "I proved them something". Reaching 0.5T was satisfying, so was outperforming whole nullsec alliances in kills."
See, it's thins kinda thing that mostly bugs me. Do you honestly think you outperformed null alliances and do you honestly thing you are smart for stating this?
I get the impression you like to take the easy route to everything, so the thing you like about EVE most is that there is no set metric, so whatever you decide upon can be what you judge yourself by, thus you are always the best. If we are to believe what you have written, you are the best PvPer in the whole of EVE. Would you say that is true?

Arrendis said...

Just to interject here as a second CFC pilot (I'm in TNT, for the record), for all Gevlon's talk about how much effect he's having.. uhm...

Well, there's no gentle way to put this: if I didn't read this blog occassionally, I wouldn't know Marmite or Lemmings even exist.

No, Gevlon, you are not having a measurable effect upon the CFC. You are not making anyone in any position of authority pay any attention. At most, occassionally someone will form up a group to throw shield reps at a POCO you've shot, but even that hasn't happened since early January.

For everyone who wants to point to killboards... killboards mean exactly zero in terms of large-scale nullsec activity. I fly logistics - if I lose my ship 4 times in a month, that'll show up. None of the hundreds of ships I kept from dying during dozens of fleet ops (I believe I was on something like 120-150 in January, according to my corp's statistics) show up. None of the kills that the capital/supercap fleets get while I'm sitting in a guardian in a domifleet as their backup show up on my killboard, or that of anyone else in my fleet.

Killboards mean something only to the people who let them mean everything. You are playing a game of killing individuals. We are playing a game of grinding regions. Your metrics for success are not our metrics for success. It is entirely possible for both sides in this conflict, such as it is, to claim to be achieving their goals, and for both sides to be completely correct.

So please, continue to kill the idiots. I myself got stupid last night and died to a camp in Doril because I was driving someplace while tired and inattentive.

Just don't expect that killing idiots and racking up large aggregate monetary numbers, distributed over a vast tax base, is nearly as impactful as the same monetary numbers would be when concentrated.

As an example, the USS Gerald R. Ford, CVN-78, has a price-tag of $12.8 billion or so. This is half of the estimated cost to the US GDP incurred by the short-term government shutdown last year. In terms of day-to-day impact, which do you think would have more actual effect upon the behavior of the United States: another 3-day shutdown, or someone blowing up 2 Ford-class nuclear supercarriers?

There is simply no comparison. Gevlon wants to compare what he's done to 9/11 - and for the moment, let's leave aside just how amazingly offensive that is to me as a New Yorker - but that's an inherently flawed comparison, because he isn't inflicting a single, significant blow, but rather a hundred little ones.

In effect, Gevlon's activities aren't 9/11. They're not even a school shooting. They're not even Detroit. They're the slow trickle of accidental gun violence that kills far more people in the US than 9/11 did, every year, but has little to no effect on the national character, or the course of national policy.

They're simply part of the background noise. As a low-intensity, constant annoyance, Gevlon has pretty much guaranteed his activities will be subsumed into the general background awareness of 'eh, we're the CFC, people hate us, they shoot at us in high-sec', and, for most of the 37,000 members of the CFC, utterly ignored.

Just like they have been this far.